Page 17 - 2008 NZ Subantarctic Islands

keep their numbers down to something manageable. These

creatures are living well on the largess of the New Zealanders who
support the island zoo.

The irony is that two of those species are nearly extinct in

Australia and DOC is cooperating with Australian biologists in a
breeding and relocation program to return the endangered
wallabies to their own homeland!

In a park on the North Island are herds of feral horses which are

also very destructive of native habitats, especially the native
plants. The herds are controlled and kept in a reserve area, but

every time the DOC must cull the numbers, a great protest goes
up from the New Zealand humans who do not wish to see these

horses destroyed. Sounds like home with our wild mustangs and
burros, doesn’t it? So, just as our Department of the Interior has
attempted, DOC periodically offers the excess horses for

adoption. And just as it is here at home, never are enough of the
animals adopted to keep the herds at the optimum levels.

Incidentally, these feral horses are really domestic horses who
were allowed to run free in years past—again, just like our

mustangs

Another amazingly ironic disconnect: while New Zealand is being
overrun with brushtail possums, there is still an odd import
business which thrives fairly well—frozen brushtail possum meat

is imported into NZ from Australia for human consumption! Why
don’t New Zealanders who like this meat hunt the creatures in

their own country where they are such an enormous pest?

Seems like some enterprising hunter types could create a little
business of their own selling the creatures to their fellow

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